“They called me,” he later explained. “I didn’t choose them. Anything that is giant and manmade strikes me in an awesome way and calls me. I could secretly put my wire between the highest towers in the world. It was something that had to be done, and I couldn’t explain it… it was a calling of the romantic type.”

“From the middle of the wire, I saw the beauty, the void, the amazing line of the perspective that brings you down a quarter of a mile,” Petit, now 66, tells PEOPLE of the heart-stopping view below. “I was not afraid, and I was happy to look at it, and I photographed it in my head.”

“You’re never victorious until you’ve walked the entire wire, crossed the other side, and stepped onto the platform. Many wire-walkers have died three feet before arrival because in their heart they said, ‘Hey, I did it! I did it!’ The audience screams and cheers. You think of your dinner. And then you die.”

“By inspire ourselves, we inspire others. Start gluing feathers in your arms and take off and fly, and look at the world from different perspectives. And when you see mountains, remember… mountains can be moved.”